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The term “cloud computing” popped up about five years ago to describe a relatively simple concept: the ability to consolidate and outsource computing resources to (often) external entities in order to take advantage of economies of scale, resulting in cheaper, more flexible, and more secure computing. Cloud computing enables many computing resources to be used much like a utility. Today, cloud computing is an integral part of the high-tech landscape, from consumer-grade services like cloud email (e.g., Gmail), document storage (e.g., DropBox), and collaborative editing (e.g., Google Docs) to specialized enterprise services such as customer relationship management software (e.g., Salesforce.com) to full servers (e.g., Rackspace).

On Friday, Deven McGraw, Director of the Health Privacy Project at CDT, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations at a hearing entitled “Does HIPAA Help or Hinder Patient Care and Public Safety?” The Subcommittee sought to explore whether the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 prevents hospitals and physicians from sharing mental health information with a patient’s family members. The Subcommittee also wanted to know if HIPAA permitted the disclosure of mental health information in order to prevent serious harm.

The privacy protections guarding the care and handling of your medical records just got stronger… a lot stronger.
The new rules bolster prohibitions against use of a patient’s medical records without consent for marketing communications; extend federal privacy and security protections to contractors (and subcontractors) of doctors, hospitals and insurers; improved your right to be notified when your medical records…

Over the past few months, the Federal government has issued three important documents relevant to health privacy policy. Two are reports on consumer privacy – one from the White House and one from the FTC – that include protection of sensitive health information in their recommendations. The third is guidance from

Americans have a legal right to access their medical records under HIPAA, the nation’s foremost health care privacy law, but health care companies and providers don’t always honor patient requests for access. Throughout HIPAA’s history, only a handful of health care companies have been publicly sanctioned for failing to comply with HIPAA privacy and patient access requirements….